Quotable:

"In cooking, as in all the arts, simplicity is a sign of perfection." - Curnonsky

Saturday, December 1, 2007

Bionic Woman: Sisterhood

Bionic Woman is all over the place. That's in general not a good thing, and yet there are certainly parts of the show that are good... And other parts, not so much. This episode had a couple of different plotlines going on for Jaime. The first began when she was asked to be a "bionic babysitter" and guard the teenage daughter of a man who'd made some Serbians angry enough to kill family members in retaliation.

Meanwhile Sarah was popping up in Jaime's life on an increasingly frequent basis and proving to be quite a mess in the process. She apparently had been staying with Will's father, Anthony, in scenes in which she was barely holding it together, yet other times when she confronted Jaime she was quite focused. Granted, there was some dialogue referencing her frequent mood shifts, but it was hard not to wonder if the scenes with Sarah and Anthony were originally intended for another episode, because they seemed so far removed from the rest.

Still, the material with Jaime and Sarah together was pretty strong. Sarah told Jaime that essentially, Will was a bad man, and someone who'd used them both. It was good to see some acknowledgement that Jaime lost her unborn child in the pilot in these scenes, as Jaime confronted Sarah about it, though it still didn't seem like she had nearly enough anger over what happened. It all makes Jaime so quickly sympathizing with Sarah hard to buy, and my guess is that if the producers could redo the pilot now, they would, because they likely didn't originally intend to make Sarah more sympathetic so quickly, and this is a major obstacle to that.

It's still not even clear why Sarah crashed that truck into Jaime and Will in the pilot. To kill Will? If so, why did she hit Jaime's side of the car and not his? Or did she want Jaime to be turned Bionic, knowing (as she revealed) that Jaime's advanced programming could possibly be the key to stabilizing Sarah and saving her life? The revelation that Sarah's sister died in a car accident just like the one she caused with Jaime and Will is interesting, but still doesn't explain everything.The plotline about Jaime protecting the teenage girl seemed extraneous as the Sarah storyline ramped up and she began reaching out to Jaime for help, in her complicated way. But things actually came together nicely near the end as Sarah popped up in a nail saloon Jaime and the girl were in, just as some Serbian hitmen entered the scene. The sequence in which Jaime fought these men as Sarah calmly sat and thumbed through a magazine was exciting and funny, and both characters seem really at their best when playing off each other.

The show often seems to be skipping over scenes - I met the techie Nathan in one scene last episode, but here he had a phone call with Jaime where he's asking her out that had absolutely no build up. And what was up with Antonio Pope suddenly encouraging Jaime to let out the animal inside her? Again, just one or two scenes could have established him encouraging this, but as it played, he just walks up and antagonizes and attacks her, yelling at her to unleash the animal, and it played incredibly goofy.

Jaime's "Bring it on, bitch" line to Pope was probably the biggest clunker of the night, yet at the same time the show contained some genuinely funny banter, including Jaime's teenaged assignment nonchalantly asking the fairly butch Ruth "Are you a lesbian?" and Sarah's run of insults towards that same girl, including "Why don't you hang yourself or something?". Plus, the meta comment "Don't get me started on how objectifying this whole Bionic Woman thing is" was very amusing. It was also nice to see some genuinely warm interaction between Jaime and Becca for the first time - While perhaps a bit forced, the scene in which the two sisters goofily dance together (with Sarah spying on them) was a cute one.

Right now the show is extremely disjointed, and feels like the mixture of dueling creative minds all the behind the scenes upheaval has hinted at. Still, it remains watchable and often entertaining, even if it's constantly going back and forth between being cleverly entertaining and ironically entertaining. This was hardly a boring hour of television, it was just muddled.

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About Me

I've been writing my blog since 2007 and have decided to repurpose it to showcase my cooking passion.
How did a girl like me discover passion and joy in the kitchen? I suppose it all began with my mother. She made the basics for us back in the 70s - tacos, spaghetti, and boxed spice cake. We didn't go out to eat a whole lot, so I had the experience of watching mom in the kitchen doing her thing.
My cooking can be described as simple Midwestern. I prefer easy recipes that don't include a lot of fancy ingredients. If I can't pronounce it, I won't cook with it.
Let me introduce you to the joys of being in the kitchen without even realizing it.